TSUNAMI Q's

[Guest]

Where is the UKFSSART response? What do we train for? New years eve tonight, does somebody want all usar and ukfssart teams here? Somebody know something I don't? Any money on us going once all the celebrations are over? Anyone as ashamed as me that we have not sent a sar response?

This is beyond politics guys. What the HELL :twisted:  are these people  playing at?

'overseas rescue' it says on my contract.........................

 luv otto s.wales

[Proby]

I'm not sure, but there are some ukfssart team members on my watch, they are not on international call at the moment, and while watching the TV they were pretty sure that they saw an ukfssart team in some of the pictures.

However i aggree completely with you that you should be out there whether on call or not ... its one of the biggest disaster of our lifetime and on a scale we're not likely to see again for a long time.  Like you said its what you train for.

Im not an ukfssart member but i can say, that rather than donating £50 over the phone i'd like to be there doing something for the relief effort.

How many fat cat companies are making a profit out of our donations?

I personally would be happy to donate a weeks hard graft!

[Guest]

thanks for replying I was begining to think I was the only one who give a monkeys.

[Guest]

I agree with you why have nobody been sent. All anybody can do is give a positive effect to the disaster relief. It is not the first time UKFSSART have been used for humanitarian aid, WHAT IS HAPPENING AND WHY ARE DECISIONS SO SLOW TO BE MADE!
If this disaster happened in a more industrial and a British invested area I am sure we would have been deployed. Lots of questions, No answers??

[otto]

Ah well moodster, JC, Tommo, Doug, ER, proby, Allen, blue and anyone else who even made it as far as this site.
 looks like nobody gives a monkeys. Its a sad culmination of events for the SAR community. Chin up guys we would've given it our best shot.

see you on the big(ger) one.

fed up, Otto

[Guest]

I am not a UKFSSART bod but surely there must be a national co-ordinator or co-ordinating body that can give the answers you request.
I for one can only assume at this stage that the logistics to support a mass humanitarian effort are not in place at present. For example, plentiful supplies of water, food and transport in the affected areas to support large numbers of aid workers as well as the local poulation.
It certainly seems that the obstacles are not all at this end, some of the nations seem to be content to take ownership of their own needs. As such where no request for assistance is made then none can be sent. It does seem that the immediate need was for material assistance and the means to get it to the affected areas (often only by way of cargo carrying aircraft and helicopter) as opposed to the sending of additional rescuers/body recovery specialists.
I think the priority all along has been to address the survival needs of the 'walking' wounded number the hundreds of thousands as opposed to getting valuable resources bogged down in a handful of protracted rescues. Now the priority is shifting to the prvention and control of disease i think it is even more unlikely that an organisation like UKFSSART will be utilised. The priority now has to be the exended provision of sanitary medical care and the restoration of functioning drinking water and sewerage systems. UKFSSART does have its place but this occurrence i feel was always going to be outside the teams specialised span of control given the size and nature of the incident.
Keep on training, your time will come. Although when it does you might just wish it hadn't.

[Guest]

Hi Guys, I am the UKFSSART Dog Section Co-ord and I can assure you that The National Co-ord at ODPM has been trying to get UKFSSART on this shout but to no avail. there has to be a specific request from the host nation for a deployment to take place. I believe the Army locally feel they have it covered.
Just out of interest we have for some time been setting up a SAR dog team in Thailand and two of our trainers went out on Boxing day to assist them on their first shout at their request and at the expense of a private company.

[otto]

Hi Doc,

As you can see from this site there are a lot of frustrated people about.

I believe the fact that ukfssart coordinaters would push to get us on the shout but where was  the info? We feel we have been kept totally in the dark here, after all we are all on the same side.

all the best, otto

[Guest]

Nice thoughts Mike,
But to put you in the picture a little better.... 'Our time has come' many times before, and our skills are not just search and rescue, you may be suprised to know. Many of our members are trained in setting up communications, water purification systems, sewerage, shelter, airheads, distribution centres etc, etc. So as you may now appreciate, it's not all about rescue necessarily when something of this scale occurs. We do not profess to be 'experts' in all fields, but we can make a difference, especially when so many people need help.

The Inquisitor  

[Guest]

Apologies if my knowledge as to your expertise was rather naive. It seems therefore that most of the issues are most definately of a political nature.
Sadly if this is the case i feel that an experience of this type will only taint the enthusiasm of many current members and possibly discourage future volunteers.

[Chris Houston]

I've just got back from Sri Lanka.  The place is swarming with all the big NGO's and Armies.  We met the UN (UNICEF), The Red Cross, MSF as saw many armies there in force.  There is a lot of politics at play out there, Sri Lanka for example is in the middle of a civil war and in many regards it seems like help is not always appreciated (we had to lie our way through military road blocks to get aid through and NGO's declined our initial offers of help.)  However at the same time the situation is not always well managed, we met lots of people who had received no visits, we met about 100 people living in a makeshift shelter with 1 days food left and met doctors who had visited camps with no toilets.

One member of our team was a Red Cross qualified rescuer, but it was clear that there was no rescuing to be done there, those skills were needed immediatly after the event.  The buildings that collapsed that I saw were mostly simple buildings and I suspect that local people did the rescusing immediatly themselves.  

The main problems we encountered on our mission were political, trust and paperwork.  As we were self funded, we were able to avoid most of the bullsh*t.